Renzi presents economic blueprint

Premier vows to press on with overhaul of political system

(By Paul Virgo)
(ANSA) - Rome, April 8 - Premier Matteo Renzi presented the
government's economic blueprint for the next three years on
Tuesday after his cabinet approved the plan and pledged to beat
resistance to his drive to overhaul Italy's slow, expensive
political system.
The Economic and Financial Document (DEF) features the
executive's macroeconomic forecasts and its plans to boost
Italy's weak recovery after the country emerged from its longest
postwar recession last year.
These plans include Renzi's pledge to pass 10 billion
euros in income tax cuts targeting lower earners.

He said this would mean an extra 80 euros a month for
those workers, the equivalent to an extra pay packet during the
course of the year.
The tax cuts will be delivered via a decree that the
cabinet will approve on April 18, he said.

The document, which needs to be approved by parliament
quickly so it can be delivered to the European Union by the end
of the month, forecasts that the Italian economy will grow 0.8%
in this year.
That is higher than the European Commission's prediction of
0.6%, but less optimistic than the 1% of the last forecast of
the administration of Enrico Letta - Renzi's colleague in the
centre-left Democratic Party, whom he unseated in February.

The blueprint put Italy's deficit-to-GDP ratio at 2.6%
this year, under the EU threshold of 3%.

It also confirmed the government's plans to set a cap on
the earnings of public-sector managers to the 238,000-euro
annual salary of President Giorgio Napolitano.
Renzi also confirmed that he is forging ahead with reforms
to make Italy easier and cheaper to govern, including the
transformation of the Senate into a leaner assembly of
local-government representatives with blunted law-making powers.

Ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, the leader of the opposition
centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party, has expressed doubts about
a Constitutional reform bill presented by the government and
hinted he may go back on an agreement to back the reforms.

There have also been calls from within the PD for an
alternative reform, which would see the number of Italian
parliamentarians halved, but retain the Senate as a elected
assembly.

Renzi reiterated that he intended to have the first reading
of the reform bill - which will also complete the elimination of
Italy's provincial councils and return some powers to central
government from the frequently overspending regional
administrations - before European elections on May 25.
"We respect everyone and we'll talk in even more detail
about the reform of the Senate," Renzi told a press conference.